Lincoln had laid aside his
proclamation waiting for a victory. He waited two months, meanwhile giving out public
statements based on his previous noncommittal attitude: then on September 22, after Lees
invasion had been foiled at Antietam, he issued the preliminary proclamation. That this
proclamation was far from an abolition document is shown by a careful reading of its
provisions. The President began by reiterating that the purpose of the war was the
restoration of the Union and reaffirming his intention still to labor for compensated
emancipation. This was certainly a far cry from the Garrisonian program. He then declared
that on January 1, 1863, slaves in rebellious states or parts of states should be
"then, thenceforward, and forever free"; and he added, perhaps indiscreetly,
that "the executive government of the United States . . . will do no act . . . to
repress such persons . . . in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
This clause was open to misinterpretation as an
incitement to servile insurrection, and it was almost universally so interpreted in the
South. The authors, however, have not found a shred of evidence that Lincoln actually
sought to encourage social war or Negro uprisings among the Southern people; indeed in one
of his public papers he referred to the massacre of noncombatants as among the
"barbarous" methods that are excluded in time of war. The only method by which
he meant for Negroes to fight for their freedom was as soldiers within the Union army
acting within the rules of war. As to supporting their efforts toward actual freedom, he
had in mind that a "promise, being made, must be kept," not in terms of
encouraging servile war, but of guaranteeing freedom to Negro soldiers generally and to
slaves finding their way into Union lines. To place the matter beyond doubt, he declared
as follows in his final proclamation of January 1, 1863: "And I hereby enjoin upon
the people ... declared free to abstain from all violence, unless in necessary self
defence. . ."
The proclamation was not expressive of any
general antislavery policy. Nowhere did it signify personal vindictiveness toward
slaveholders: rather the President was still clinging to his compensated-emancipation
scheme as the permanent solution; the reimbursement of Southern owners for the loss of
their slaves was still part of his active policy. That the proclamation marked a departure
in Lincoln's program toward slavery as announced at the outset of his administration is
not to be interpreted as a breach of faith. It is the nature of wars to produce unforeseen
measures. Lincoln's promise in his inaugural of 1861 that he would not touch slavery in
the states was not a prediction of governmental policy in the event of civil war, but
rather a pledge based on the assumption that the slave states should remain in the Union.
No state remaining normally in the Union was affected by his proclamation when issued.
That Lincoln, even in war, gave honest trial to his noninterference policy is shown by the
following statement which he made in 1863: "There was more than a year and a half of
trial to suppress the rebellion before the proclamation [was] issued. . . ."
On January 1, 1863, the definitive proclamation
was issued, its chief provision being that in regions then designated as "in
rebellion" (with certain notable exceptions) all slaves were declared free. So famous
has this proclamation become, and so encrusted with tradition, that a correct historical
conception of its actual effect is rarely found in the voluminous literature which the
subject has evoked. The stereotyped picture of the emancipator suddenly striking the
shackles from millions of slaves by a stroke of the presidential pen is altogether
inaccurate. On this point one should carefully note the exceptions in the proclamation
itself. The whole state of Tennessee was omitted; none of the Union slave states was
included; and there were important exceptions as to portions of Virginia and Louisiana,
those being the portions within Union military lines. In fact freedom was decreed only in
regions then under Confederate control. "The President has purposely made the
proclamation inoperative [declared the N. Y. World] in all places where we have
gained a military footing which makes the slaves accessible. He has proclaimed
emancipation only where he has notoriously no power to execute it. The exemption of the
accessible parts of Louisiana, Tennessee, and Virginia renders the proclamation not merely
futile, but ridiculous." As to the effect of the proclamation the World declared:

Immediate practical effect it
has none; the slaves remaining in precisely the same condition as before. They still live
on the plantations, tenant their accustomed hovels, obey the command of their master . . .
, eating the food he furnishes and doing the work he requires precisely as though Mr.
Lincoln had not declared them free. . . . [The state courts] do not recognize the validity
of the decree on which he [the slave] rests his claim. So long . . . as the present . . .
status continues, the freedom declared by this proclamation is a dormant, not an actual,
freedom.

* * * *
* * * *

The proclamation is issued as
a war measure, as an instrument for the subjugation of the rebels. But that cannot be a means
of military success which presupposes this same . . . success as the condition of its
own existence. . . . A war measure it clearly is not, inasmuch as the previous success of
the war is the thing that can give it validity.

"We show our sympathy with
slavery," Seward is reported to have said, "by emancipating slaves where we
cannot reach them and holding them in bondage where we can set them free." The London
Spectator declared (October 11, 1862): "The government liberates the enemy's
slaves as it would the enemy's cattle, simply to weaken them in the . . . conflict. . . .
The principle is not that a human being cannot justly own another, but that he cannot own
him unless he is loyal to the United States." On the same date the Saturday
Review, in a caustic article, denounced the proclamation as a crime, and declared
that Lincoln's "desperate efforts to procure military support will probably
precipitate the ruin of his cause." Earl Russell in England declared: "The
Proclamation . . . appears to be of a very strange nature. It professes to emancipate all
slaves in places where the United States authorities cannot exercise any jurisdiction . .
. .but it does not decree emancipation . . . in any States, or parts of States, occupied
by federal troops . . . and where, therefore, emancipation . . . . might have been carried
into effect. . . . There seems to be no declaration of a principle adverse to slavery in
this proclamation."
It will be noted that Lincoln justified his act
as a measure of war. To uphold his view would be to maintain that the freeing of enemy
slaves was a legitimate weapon of war to be wielded by the President, and that a
proclamation for the purpose would be somewhat analogous to a presidential proclamation
blockading an enemy's coast, the legal principle being that a state of war puts the whole
enginery of belligerent measures within the control of the President. In the new attitude
toward slavery which the war produced it was natural to find considerable support for the
view that slavery was a legitimate target of the war power; but it is a matter of plain
history that prior to the Civil War the United States had emphatically denied the
"belligerent right" of emancipation. Indeed John Quincy Adams, who has been
credited by his grandson with having originated the idea of the emancipation proclamation,
declared officially while secretary of state in 1820 that "No such right
[emancipation of slaves] is acknowledged as a Law of War by writers who admit any
limitation."
A close study of the contemporary situation
gives added point to Lincoln's concept of his proclamation as a war measure. That he
really favored emancipation by state action with Federal compensation to owners has
already been shown. The proclamation was by no means a touchstone for his whole abolition
policy. In the period prior to the proclamation he had been "emphatic in denouncing
any interference by the General Government with the subject." The cabinet agreed with
him in considering slavery a local, domestic question; and the adoption of the
proclamation in contrast to these conceptions of public policy could only be thought of in
terms of an emergency or extraordinary measure. He issued the proclamation "by virtue
of the power in me vested as Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy . . . and as a fit
and necessary war measure." He characterized it as an act "warranted by the
Constitution upon military necessity" This interpretation took the proclamation out
of the pattern of normal constitutional procedure and gave it a certain irregularity for
which the justification was to be found in the existing state of war, and more especially
in Lincoln's interpretation of measures appropriate for such a state of war. It is
pertinent therefore to remember that Lincoln's view of his war powers gave wide latitude
to the Presidents choice of means for destroying enemy resistance. Interpreting his powers
as wartime leader he once said: "I think the constitution invests its
commander-in-chief, with the law of war, in time of war. . . . Armies, the world over,
destroy enemies' property when they cannot use it; and even destroy their own to keep it
from the enemy. Civilized belligerents do all in their power to help themselves or hurt
the enemy, except a few things regarded as barbarous or cruel." To Lincoln's mind the
war emergency justified things normally unconstitutional. "I felt that measures,
otherwise unconstitutional," he said, "might become lawful, by becoming
indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the
nation."
This placing of the proclamation strictly on
the basis of military necessity had embarrassing aspects. It seemed a confession that the
proclamation lacked lawworthiness. It served to discountenance any extension of the area
of the proclamation later in the war; for if military necessity did not require the
inclusion of Tennessee and of certain portions of Virginia and Louisiana at the beginning
of 1863, there was even less necessity of including them later. Yet as the struggle
progressed and abolition came to be regarded as a major war aim, this extension of
military emancipation was precisely what the antislavery element demanded. Furthermore,
the appeal to military necessity as the legal justification of the proclamation caused
Lincoln's act to smack of irresponsible dictatorial power, and this aspect of the matter
gave him no little concern. All these embarrassing features of the edict in its legal
aspects were noted by Lincoln in a draft of a letter to Chase which appears among his
published writings under date of September 2, 1863. Referring to the difficulties in the
way of extending the area of the proclamation, he said:

". . . . . The original proclamation has no . . . legal
justification, except as a military measure. . . . If I take the step must I not do so,
without the argument of military necessity, and so, without any argument, except . . .
that I think the measure . . . expedient and . . . right? . . . Would I not thus be in the
boundless field of absolutism? . . . Could it fail to be perceived that without any
further stretch, I might do the same in Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, and
Missouri; and even change any law in any state? Would not many of our own friends shrink
away appalled? Would it not lose us the elections, and with them, the very cause we seek
to advance? "

To follow further the legal
questions presented by the proclamation is impossible here. There were strong grounds for
disputing its law-worthiness, whether under the Constitution or under the laws of war; and
these grounds of dispute seem the more convincing when one remembers the expansiveness of
Lincoln's theory of the presidential war power and the seriousness of his doubts as to the
proclamation despite this expansive theory. In sum, the edict of freedom would seem to
illustrate Lincoln's willingness, with prudent caution and on due provocation, to seize
extralegal weapons.
Though the legal hearings of the proclamation
are of historical interest, its actual effects are of greater significance. In this field
a study of realities based upon contemporary sources must be substituted for offhand or
obvious conclusions. One must consider not merely the language of the proclamation, but
also the manner in which certain meanings were read into the document by the popular mind.
Especially is this true as to the bearing of the proclamation upon war aims. According to
the strict wording of the proclamation it would appear that no change in war aims was
intended. Preservation of slavery in non-rebellious regions was clearly implied; and (to
assume an outcome at variance with possibilities) if the Southern states had done all that
Lincoln asked in September of 1862, i.e., if they bad come hack into the Union, there was
nothing in the emancipating declarations of Lincoln to prevent the war ending with slavery
still maintained. Thus it cannot be said that Lincoln's proclamations specifically made
abolition a war aim of the North; indeed the September proclamation forbade such a
construction, since it proclaimed restoration of the Union, not abolition, as the object
of the struggle. Yet the truth of the matter was that the proclamation became a species of
slogan or shibboleth; its dramatization in the popular mind was of more effect than its
actual provisions. Despite the absence in the proclamation of any express design to
produce such a result, it came to be pretty generally assumed that in September of 1862
the war somehow took a new turn, and that thenceforward it was being prosecuted as a war
against slavery. It was with this interpretation that the abolitionists favored the edict,
and that those indifferent or unfriendly to emancipation opposed it.
That Lincoln by no means regarded his edict as
a solution of the slavery question is evident in his annual message to Congress of
December 1, 1862, in which he argued at great length the adoption of a constitutional
amendment making effective his compensated-emancipation scheme by the issue of Federal
bonds to such states as should abolish slavery by a gradual process to become complete by
the year 1900. The President turned the proposition over and examined it in all its
facets, elaborately exploring its economic, cultural, financial, constitutional, and
ethical aspects. Never was Lincoln more in earnest. Referring deferentially to the greater
age and public experience of some of those in Congress, he said: "Yet I trust that in
view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect to
yourselves in any undue earnestness I may seem to display."
It does not appear that Lincoln ever showed
such enthusiasm concerning the proclamation. Late in the war he spoke of its legal
inadequacy, saying: "A question might be raised whether the proclamation was legally
valid. It might be urged, that it only aided those that came into our lines, and that it
was inoperative as to those who did not give themselves up; or that it would have no
effect upon the children of slaves born hereafter; in fact, it would be urged that it did
not meet the evil."
Upon the Negroes of the South the proclamation
itself had but little immediate effect. This is not to argue that slaves were indifferent
to the course of the war. Though most of the Negroes in the interior sections of the
Confederacy remained faithful to their masters and though there were cases of unfailing
slave loyalty elsewhere, most Negroes, as Federal troops neared, began exhibiting
increasing restiveness, became impudent to their masters, and refused to work or to submit
to punishment for their misdoings. When the Union army actually appeared on the scene,
Bell I. Wiley writes, the Negroes generally engaged in the "seizure and distribution
of property, and a general celebration of the advent of freedom." But the
emancipation proclamation did not initiate, or even notably stimulate, these reactions. It
did not lead to a general servile insurrection in the South. The Confederates detected a
few plots among the slaves, but "actual outbreaks were fewer still, and these were
immediately suppressed." "That the slaves in the interior did not 'rise up
against their masters," adds Professor Wiley, "is not surprising when one takes
into consideration their lack of facilities for rapid communication and concerted action,
the affection which the most intelligent ones had for their masters families, the fear
inspired by the summary execution of those whose plots to rebel were detected, and the
tremendous advantages which the whites had over them in every respect, save that of
numbers."
Nor did the proclamation create the phenomenon
of Negroes appearing within Union lines. Prior to its issuance fugitive slaves within
their camps had been a familiar sight to Union commanders; and such Negroes were by law
free. Indeed the proclamation added hardly at all to what Congress had done, at least on
paper, by its acts freeing fugitive slaves within Union lines, emancipating
slave-soldiers, and freeing "rebel"-owned slaves by the confiscation act of
1862. On the morrow of Lincoln's edict Union generals in the South did not suddenly face
an entirely new problem: it was rather that they now found it necessary to provide more
formally and elaborately for the increasing numbers of Negroes who were no longer to be
regarded merely as self-invited guests within their midst.
Grants army in Tennessee and Mississippi found
that, with the abandonment of plantations on the approach of Union forces, Negroes
"flocked in vast numbers--an army in themselves--to the camps of the Yankees."
Here was a slave population "springing from . . . barbarism, . . . forsaking its
local traditions and all the associations . . . of the old plantation life, . . . with
feet shod or bleeding, individually or in families . . . --an army of slaves and
fugitives, pushing its way irresistibly toward an army of fighting men, perpetually on the
defensive and perpetually ready to attack. The arrival among us of these hordes was like
the oncoming of cities. There was no plan in this exodus, no Moses to lead it. Unlettered
reason or the mere inarticulate decision of instinct brought them to us."
To deal with this problem Grant ordered
Chaplain John Eaton of the Twenty-Seventh Ohio Infantry Volunteers to "take charge of
the contrabands." As Grant explained, his own troops had to be protected from
disease, and humane considerations dictated that care be given to these helpless folk. For
these purposes Eaton established Negro camps, cared for the sick, organized the
able-bodied for military labor, set them to work gathering and baling cotton, employed
them as teamsters and in many other kinds of service, dealt with Negro exhorters, kept
Negro families together as best he could, and made heroic efforts to transform shiftless
bondsmen into self sufficing members of society. By July, 1864, Eaton had 113,650 freedmen
under his supervision. Most of these were earning their own subsistence, 41,150 in
military service as soldiers, laundresses, cooks, officers servants, or laborers, 62,300
in private employment as mechanics, draymen, hackmen, barbers, hired laborers, and the
like; the remainder depended in whole or in part upon the government for support. General
B. F. Butler in 1863 created a comparable system of Negro administration in parts of
Virginia and North Carolina, appointing a "general superintendent of negro
affairs" with a number of superintendents under him and directing these officials to
take a colored census, provide shelter, medical care, and other charity to freedmen,
supervise labor contracts, allot lands to Negroes, and attend to their training.
These are but a few of the many instances of
military action to deal with the elaborate problems of the freedmen: they show clearly
enough that, whether by reason of the proclamation or not, Union commanders had immense
numbers of slaves (or ex-slaves) on their hands. As the armies advanced in the South,
especially in 1864-1865, the problem became more pressing. The Negroes had but a hazy
notion of the meaning of Lincoln's proclamation, in which haziness the whole country
shared; but they soon knew of it and looked upon the Union military line as the line of
freedom.

The advance of Sherman's army [wrote General H. W. Slocum] was known far
and wide many miles in advance of us. It was natural that these poor creatures [the
slaves], seeking a place of safety, should flee to the army, and endeavor to keep in sight
of it. Every day, as we marched on we could see, on each side of our line of march, crowds
of these people coming to us through roads and across the fields, bringing with them all
their earthly goods, and many goods which were not theirs. Horses, mules, cows, dogs, old
family carriages, carts, and whatever they thought might be of use . . . were . . .
brought to us. They were allowed to follow in rear of our column, and at times they were
almost equal in numbers to the army they were following.

In the process of military
emancipation, however, Lincoln's proclamation was but one of various factors; nor was it
an unmixed blessing. It encouraged the rush of Negro refugees into Union lines, stimulated
military action in dealing with freedmen, promoted abolition measures in some of the Union
slave states, and prepared the way for the final eradication of slavery by constitutional
amendment. On the other hand it complicated military adjustments between the United States
and the Confederate States (e.g., with reference to the exchange of prisoners), opened the
way to Southern retaliation, launched an angry wave of resentment in the South at what was
considered a capital grievance, and gave to Lincoln's prestige a setback among certain
elements of Northern opinion which proved a serious loss to the President and his party.
At the South the proclamation produced a
reaction of indignant hostility. The Richmond Whig (October 1, 1862) denounced
the "fiends new programme," describing the proclamation as "a dash of the
pen to destroy four thousand millions of our property, and . . . a bid for the slaves to
rise in insurrection. . . " To the Richmond Examiner it seemed the
"most startling political crime . . . yet known in American history." Servile
insurrection seemed to this journal the "sole purpose" of the proclamation.
Referring to the proclamation in his message to the Confederate Congress on January 12,
1863, President Davis declared that "a restitution of the Union has been rendered
forever impossible by the adoption of a measure which . . . neither admits of retraction
nor can coexist with union." The "entire newspaper press of the
Confederacy," said a Richmond editor, "echoed the sentiment of the
President."
E. A. Pollard described the proclamation as the
"triumph of fanaticism under a false pretense." He declared that at first it had
no effect, being worth "no more than the paper on which its hold iniquity was
traced," but denounced its fundamental principle and referred to the
"misrepresentation of the emancipation proclamation, as a deed of
philanthropy" as "absurd." "A candid world," be said, interpreted
it as "an act of malice towards the master rather than one of mercy to the
slave." Animating the South to desperate exertion, he said, it "secured a new
lease of war."
In the North there was no general unanimity of
feeling. Sentiment varied from unqualified endorsement to dissatisfaction, doubt, and
resentment. Wendell Phillips spoke of the liberation and arming of the slaves as the
salvation of the republic; and Charles Sumner endorsed the proclamation in an elaborate
speech at Boston. Abolitionists generally, while disappointed at the limitations of the
proclamation, gave it their approval. By the firing of guns, mass meetings, and other
demonstrations, the event was widely hailed as an occasion for jubilation. The New York Times
(September 23, 1862) referred to the Presidents decree as the most far-reaching
document ever issued by the government, saving its wisdom was unquestionable, its
necessity indisputable. Commenting on the first month of the proclamation on October 22,
1862, the Times declared that it was well received in the loyal states, that the border
states had not been alienated, that the army was not offended, that Southern leaders
feared the new policy, and that the chord of approval had been struck in Europe. In the
Northern Congress, though there were outbursts against the edict, the votes taken were
mostly favorable to it. A resolution of C. H. Yeaman of Kentucky, denouncing the
proclamation as not calculated to hasten peace and not well chosen as a war measure, was
tabled in the House (94 to 45); and the resolution of S. C. Fessenden of Maine approving
the resolution as well adapted to hasten peace was adopted, though by a narrower vote (78
to 51).
There was some effort in Congress to "give
effect" to the proclamation, i.e., to enact it as a law. Representative Arnold of
Illinois introduced into the House of Representatives a bill to carry the proclamation
"into more immediate execution" by prohibiting the re-enslavement of any person
whom the proclamation declared to be free.. When the Wade-Davis bill was under
consideration Sumner moved an amendment providing that the emancipation proclamation
"is hereby adopted and enacted as a statute of the United States, and as a rule . . .
for the government of the military and naval forces thereof." "I wish to see
emancipation of the rebel States," said Sumner, "placed under the guarantee of
an act of Congress. I do not wish to see it left to float on a presidential
proclamation." Willard Saulsbury of Delaware, one of the border-state moderates,
seized upon Sumner's amendment as a confession that the proclamation was without legal
effect in itself, adding that he had not supposed the Presidents friends would so soon
make open confession that his acts were illegal. Though these proposals were not adopted,
both houses of Congress did pass in the Wade-Davis bill of 1864 a provision that "all
persons held to involuntary servitude . . . in the [seceded] states . . . are hereby
emancipated and discharged therefrom, and they and their posterity shall be forever
free." Owing to Lincoln's veto this bill never became law; indeed one of his
objections was this very clause, for he did not believe that Congress possessed even in
war the power to abolish slavery in the South by ordinary statute. In this respect he felt
that the Presidents war power exceeded that of Congress.
Many Northern individuals either opposed the
proclamation or expressed disappointment in it. Thurlow Weed declared: ". . . it has
strengthened the South and weakened the North . . . ." The elder Francis P. Blair
said that the President "had ruined himself by his proclamations, and it was
necessary to do something to regain the confidence of the people." The effect of the
proclamation upon Orville H. Browning of Illinois is of considerable interest. Opposed to
slavery, Browning had enlisted enthusiastically with the anti-Nebraska movement of 1854
and had become one of the leading Republicans of Illinois. His character and public acts
offer an excellent study of the effect of Lincoln's increasing radicalism upon Republican
moderates. He vigorously opposed the drastic confiscation act of 1862 and was offended
when Lincoln signed it: the emancipation proclamation met with his strong disapproval and
made a marked difference in his attitude toward Lincoln's policies and toward the
Republican party. In his diary he revealed his views as follows: "Had conversation
[October 14, 1862] with Judge Drummond [Federal justice in Illinois] upon public affairs.
He agrees fully with me in my views-- . . . Thought the Presidents proclamation
unfortunate--He was not satisfied of its constitutionality but to say nothing of that, it
was ill advised as it could do no possible good, and certainly would do harm in uniting
the rebels more firmly than ever, and making them fight with the energy of despair."
This Republican senator was asked to address a
Union meeting in his home town, Quincy, Illinois, on the night before the election of
November 4, 1862. According to the Ouincy Whig he "appeared, began his
speech by . . . pronouncing the issues more momentous tha[n] . . . in any election in this
country and then astonished his hearers by the sage advice that they should . . . vote for
the best ticket, leaving it to be inferred that he did not know which was the
best ticket. Gov. Wright, a Democrat, had an opinion and gave it; Mr. Browning gave none,
. . fell back into the confiscation rut, and wound up with a sneer at proclamations."
It does not appear that Browning, friend of Lincoln though he was, ever again gave real
support to the Republican party after the proclamation.
Many other examples of this dissent could be
cited. Thomas Ewing "said the Presidents emancipation and Habeas Corpus proclamations
ha(l ruined the Republican party in Ohio." The adverse verdict upon the Lincoln
administration given in the election of 1862, and the part of tile proclamation in
contributing to this verdict, will be noted later." As to the anti-Lincoln Democrats,
their attitude was expressed by Vallandighams denunciation of a war to free the blacks and
enslave the whites. In Illinois the proclamation was denounced by Democrats as a
"gigantic usurpation," as "unwarrantable in military [and] civil law,"
and as properly called a war measure," for it would "protract the war
indefinitely." Similar expressions could be repeated at great length. It should,
however, be noted per contra that such support as came to the administration in
Illinois in the election of 1862 was attributed by the Chicago Tribune to the
emancipation proclamation and the removal of General Buell; that Grimes of Iowa considered
the proclamation a source of strength in his state; and that a similar view as to Missouri
was expressed by the Missouri Democrat.
As to the effect of the proclamation abroad it is not easy to
generalize. It is true that there was in Europe and England an overwhelming antislavery
sentiment and that enthusiastic applause was received from English abolitionists; but at
the same time many felt that it was not the humanitarian motive which had actuated Lincoln
and that the proclamation as issued was unfortunate. Various British newspapers scored the
measure, declaring that it was without legal force, that it was a high-handed proceeding,
and that it betrayed Lincoln's waning power. On the other hand there were many foreign
expressions of opinion distinctly favorable to the Lincoln administration. John Bigelow
wrote to Seward (October 10, 1862) that France was unanimously for emancipation" and
that the Union cause would "daily grow in grace" in that country. Among
humanitarians in England the proclamation produced, as Frederic Bancroft has said, a
"surprising awakening," being hailed in public meetings addressed by prominent
speakers. On January 29, 1863, an emancipation meeting in Exeter Hall, London, was so
crowded that a second and a third meeting were held to accommodate the overflow. Telegrams
were read reporting meetings in other places; the name of Lincoln was cheered and the
cause of the South denounced. So greatly were the Confederate agents worried at this time
because of "the universal hostility of Europe to slavery and the . . . warnings that
Europe would never recognize . . . a slave-power" that Judah P. Benjamin, Confederate
secretary of state, has been described as "in profound despair" and ready to
concede that "spades were trumps." New instructions for the Confederate
commissioners were prepared: they were now ready to propose Southern emancipation of the
Negroes if they could thus improve their prospects of recognition. The fact that
recognition was not obtained, though shortly previous to this it seemed highly probable,
is in large part attributable to Lincoln's proclamation.
A natural accompaniment of emancipation was the
use of colored men as Union soldiers. Though most Northerners were willing to accept
Negroes as laborers in the army, there was, at the outset, much opposition to the idea of
Negro troops, and even Lincoln "thought that the organization, equipment and arming
of negroes, like other soldiers, would be productive of more evil than good." But
after the emancipation proclamation sentiment for Negro soldiers grew. Indeed, several
Federal commanders had not waited for the President to act but, on their own initiative,
had for several months been recruiting colored troops. On April 12, 1862, General David
Hunter in command of the Department of the South had organized the first official regiment
of Negro troops, composed of former slaves from Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina; but
this proved a bad beginning, for the blacks were, according to one account, "driven
like cattle" into the regiment, "kept for several months in camp, and then
turned off without a shilling, by order of the War Department." In July General John
W. Phelps began outfitting "three regiments of Africans" in his Louisiana
command, but friction with his superior officer, Benjamin F. Butler, soon led to his
resignation. On August 22 Butler himself called on the free colored militiamen of
Louisiana to enroll in the volunteer forces of the Union. In theory, all who joined
Butlers regiments bad been free, but in practice, an observer remarked, "nobody
inquires whether the recruit is (Or has been) a slave. As a consequence the boldest and
finest fugitives have enlisted. . . ." Meanwhile, General James H. Lane in Kansas
had, from the very beginning of the war, enrolled Negroes into his forces, and "small
units and companies of Kansas colored troops fought in the first engagements in the Civil
War in which American Negroes were permitted to fight for the Union."
On August 25, 1862, the war department gave
official sanction to the policy of recruiting Negro soldiers by authorizing General Rufus
Saxton in the Department of the South "to arm, uniform, equip, and receive into the
service of the United States, such number of volunteers of African descent as [he] may
deem expedient, not exceeding 5,000." Lincoln's final emancipation proclamation of
January 1, 1863, also sanctioned the newly freed Negroes being received into the armed
force of the United States; and thenceforward the formation of colored military units
became common. In August, 1864, Lincoln stated that there were nearly 150,000 colored men
in the Union service; by the end of the war the number reached the high total of I78,895.
On widely separated fronts these Negro warriors saw action--in South Carolina and Florida,
at Port Hudson, at Olustee, at Petersburg, and elsewhere.
Cautious at first as to Negro troops, Lincoln
came to speak of them in eulogistic terms. Writing to General Dix on January 14, 1863, be
said that since the disadvantages of the emancipation proclamation had to be endured, its
benefits should also be grasped. In March, 1863, he spoke of colored troops as "very
important, if not indispensable." Soon after, he expressed satisfaction at the
conduct of colored troops at Jacksonville, Florida; again he said, "The raising of
colored troops . . . will greatly help every way." Some, he said, considered
"the emancipation policy and the use of the colored troops . . . the heaviest blow
yet dealt to the rebellion . . . He pointed out that he could not give up these troops and
could not abandon the forts garrisoned by black men; nor could he take 150,000 men from
"our side" and let them be used "against us." He emphatically declared
that these black soldiers should not be re-enslaved. "Should I do so," he said,
"I should deserve to be damned in time and eternity."
Negro soldiers were generally under white
officers. Perhaps the most famous of these was T. W. Higginson of Massachusetts, who in
November, 1862, was invited to take command of the first regiment raised by General
Saxton. "Had an invitation reached me to take command of a regiment of Kalmuck
Tartars," wrote Higginson, "it could hardly have been more unexpected."
Accepting the colonelcy of this slave regiment, which carried over the name of Hunters
abortive organization and was known as the "First Regiment of South Carolina
Volunteers," Higginson trained it and led it in unimportant raiding operations up the
St. Marys and Edisto rivers. He records this unique experience with enthusiasm and with
extraordinary praise of these black soldiers. lie writes of the "absurdity of
distrusting the military availability of these people," who were almost entirely
black, with scarcely a mulatto among them. His enthusiasm, however, was that of an
extremist who could write: "I had been an abolitionist too long, and had known and
loved John Brown too well, not to feel a thrill of joy at last on finding myself in the
position where he only wished to be."
Another son of Massachusetts who achieved fame
in command of Negro troops was Robert Gould Shaw, youthful colonel of the Fifty-Fourth
Massachusetts, the "first colored regiment of the North to go to the war." In an
ill-advised attack upon Battery Wagner, Charleston harbor (July 8, 1863), Shaw met death
at the head of his troops, whose losses were heavy. Like Higginson, be had left a
promising post in command of white troops in order to lead the blacks.
Throughout the war Negro soldiers were under
discrimination in the matter of pay, bounties, and the like. According to Higginson, a
definite assurance by the war department that colored soldiers should receive the same pay
as white troops was violated. Up until 1864 even Negro noncommissioned officers were paid
only $7 a month, precisely what colored privates received. As a result of "sustained
effort by prominent officers of Negro troops, with help from governors, newspaper editors,
and senators," a partial victory was achieved in the army appropriation act of 1864,
but not until after the war was over did the Federal government fully abandon its
"shortsighted and parsimonious policy toward the pay of colored troops."
Naturally the use of Negro troops produced
sharp threats of retaliation at the South, where the practice was denounced as a departure
from the laws of war and a measure of brutal barbarity. On August 21, 1862, President
Jefferson Davis proclaimed that the Union generals Hunter and Phelps should be treated not
as public enemies but as outlaws and should be executed as felons, on account of their use
of slaves in armed service In his proclamation of December 23, 1862, Davis declared that
in view, of the efforts of the President of the United States to "excite servile war
within the Confederacy," slave soldiers and Federal commissioned officers serving
with them should be turned over to the states of the South to be dealt with according to
the laws of said states, which meant being put to death." A modified treatment was
decreed by the Confederate Congress, which regarded the matter as a problem for the
Confederacy, not the states, and which provided (April 30, 1863) that white officers
commanding Negro soldiers should be "deemed as inciting servile insurrection"
and should, if captured, he "put to death or be otherwise punished, at the discretion
of the court."
Against these severe decrees an order of
counter-retaliation was issued by Lincoln, who proclaimed (July 30, 1863) that for every
Union soldier killed in violation of the laws of war, "a rebel soldier shall be
executed," and for every one enslaved "a rebel soldier shall be placed at hard
labor . . . and [so] continued . . . until the other shall . . . receive the treatment due
to a prisoner of war."
It was not that these threats were put into
effect: it appears rather that on both sides the retaliatory declarations were intended
primarily to soften the war by putting an end to uncivilized practices; they are
distinctly to be regarded as threats rather than as the basis of completed policy. Lincoln
handled alleged Confederate atrocities against Negro soldiers with great caution and
restraint, even the brutal affair at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, where on April 12, 1864,
General N. B. Forrest was alleged to have refused quarter to surrendering Negro troops who
constituted a part of that garrison and was reported to have massacred several hundred of
them instead of taking them prisoners. A United States Senate investigating committee
angrily charged that the Confederates had murdered 300 Union men "in cold blood after
the post was in possession of the rebels, and our men had thrown down their arms."
Despite the aroused state of Northern opinion, Lincoln remained calm. In a public
statement made six days after the "massacre" he declared: "We do not to-day
know that a colored soldier, or white officer commanding colored soldiers, has
been massacred by the rebels when made a prisoner. . . . We are having the Fort Pillow
affair thoroughly investigated. . . . If . . . it shall turn out that there has been no
massacre at Fort Pillow, it will be almost safe to say there has been none, and will be
none elsewhere." It is significant that, in spite of Northern indignation over this
incident there was no retaliation by the Union government. As explained by Nicolay and Hay
and by Rhodes, this may have been due to the rush of events, or, more probably, to the
realization that the incident grew out of the heat of war, and that retaliation would only
make the matter far worse.
The actual consummation of freedom in American
law and practice was less a matter of presidential proclamation than of state action and
constitutional amendment. In West Virginia a clause providing gradual emancipation was
included in the new-state constitution of 1863 in order to fulfill one of the requirements
of admission to the Union. Immediate abolition was provided by constitutional amendment in
Tennessee in February, 1865. In Maryland liberation was provided by an ordinary law which
merely "repealed" the slave code of the state concerning Negroes, this code
being but an enactment of the legislature. A still different method was adopted in
Missouri, where slavery was abolished by ordinance passed by a state convention (January
11, 1865). Two of the border states, however, Delaware and Kentucky, clung tenaciously to
the dying institution; and the war ended with slavery still a state matter, though
seriously interfered with by national authority.
For the final disposition of a problem which
had been handled piecemeal by the President, the states, and Congress, and which in
consequence was left in considerable confusion, it came to be recognized that a
constitutional amendment was a legal necessity. Such an amendment was therefore reported
from the Senate committee on the judiciary by Trumbull of Illinois. It was the first
example of the use of the amending process to accomplish a specific reform on a nationwide
scale, outside what may be called the strictly constitutional function of determining the
composition and functions of government. There were grave doubts as to such use of the
Constitution. Some felt that domestic institutions were so thoroughly a matter of state
jurisdiction that a change such as the proposed thirteenth amendment should be resisted as
a revolutionary alteration of the basic American federal system. There was also
considerable doubt whether the national Constitution could be legally amended during the
Civil War; and in this doubt Senator Trumbull himself, when discussing another matter, had
shared. Such was the opposition to the amendment when first proposed that, though the
Senate adopted it (April 8, 1864) by a vote of 38 to 6,2 the lower house (June 15, 1864)
failed to muster the necessary two-thirds, the vote being 93 to 65, with 23 not voting.
The representatives, however, were moved by the election of 1864 and the progress of the
war to a change of heart; and on January 31, 1865, the amendment was carried, 119 to 56, 8
not voting.
The story of the ratification of the amendment
is bound up with the early stages of postwar reconstruction under President Johnson. Of
the thirty-six states in 1865, three-fourths of which were necessary for ratification,
more than one-fourth (eleven) had been seceded states of the Confederacy, while two of the
Union states, Delaware and Kentucky, refused to ratify. It was thus necessary to count in
some of the seceded states in order to obtain ratification; and as a matter of fact
Secretary Seward, in the proclamation which declared the amendment in force (December i8,
1865), did include eight of the former Confederate States, as shown in the table.
That these eight Southern states should be
considered competent to ratify the antislavery amendment, such ratification being
essential to its enactment, and yet be rejected by Congress and not considered states in
the Union, is but one of the many anomalies of reconstruction. They were the "Johnson
governments" of the South, brought into being under President Johnson's direction in
compliance with his generous plan of restoration, but were denied recognition by the
vindictives who controlled Congress. Some of the Radicals had suggested in 1865 that the
Southern states be left out of the count in the matter of ratifying the amendment, and
that only the Union states be considered to constitute the total, three-fourths of which
would have to give their ratification. In fact, Lincoln's secretaries and biographers have
fallen into the error of saying that the amendment was "ratified by 21 out of the 26
States," whereas it was actually ratified, as shown by Seward's proclamation of
December 18, 1865, by twenty-seven of the thirty-six states. After the amendment was
declared in force, various states added their ratifications, so that all doubts of its
validity were removed.
Lincoln did not live to see emancipation
legally consummated. Moreover, an important part of his emancipation policy was doomed to
failure--

Adoption of the Thirteenth Amendment , December 18, 1865(Stars indicate those states whose ratifications were counted in
Seward's proclamtion of
December 18, 1865, Declaring the amendment in force)

Free States of the Union

Slave States of the Union

States of the Former
Confederacy

Cal.
*Conn
*Ill.
*Ind.
Ia.
*Kan.
*Me.
*Mass.

*Md.
*Mich
*Minn.
*Mo.
*N.H.
N.J.
*N.Y.
*Nev.

*Ohio
Ore
*Pa.
*R.I.
*Vt.
*W.Va.
*Wis.

Del.
Ky.

*Ark.
*Tenn.
*N.C.
*Va. (See Note Below)
*S.C.

*La.
Miss.
*Ala.
*Ga. Tex. Fla.

Total 23

Total 2

Total 11

Total of all States 36

Note. The United States
government recognized the "restored government" of Virginia; and that state was,
rather fictitiously, represented in the Federal Congress in the early part of the war. It
was not, however, considered to be in the Union in 1865.

that of compensation to slaveholders. In passing
the British emancipation act of 1833 the Parliament granted the amount of £20,000,000 as
compensation for the destruction of slave property. Not only did the Parliament consider
the cash value of the slaves, but it also considered such factors as the value of
slave-worked land and the prospective value of children to be born. Lincoln labored
valiantly for compensation to Southern owners. At the Hampton Roads Conference (February,
1865) he is reported to have said that he "would be willing to be taxed to remunerate
the Southern people for their slaves"; that he "believed the people of the North
were as responsible for slavery as the people of the South"; and that he would be in
favor "of the Government paying a fair indemnity for the loss to the owners."
After the war, however, compensation for
slaveholders not only received little thought but was opposed to the prevailing view. The
joint resolution of Congress expressing a willingness in 1862 to compensate any state that
would free its slaves represents simply a stage in a rapidly changing policy. It was
natural to suppose that the offer should not hold good indefinitely, since promptness on
the part of the states was desired in order to hasten peace. During the brief period when
this compensation policy was presumably active, the border-state governments contributed
their part to the burial of the project: otherwise such efforts as those of
Maryland in 1865 to obtain compensation on the basis of the Federal pledge might be viewed
with more sympathy. When at the end of the war a new policy-abolition by constitutional
amendment-had been put forth, the claims of those few states whose independent abolition
of slavery occurred just before the adoption of the nation-wide amendment were lost from
sight. Finally the matter was settled by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution,
which declared that "neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay. . .
. any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave"Source: "The Civil War and Reconstruction" by
Randall and Donald